BB&T fixes ATMs hit by tech glitch, but online banking still down

BB&T is the latest bank to be hit by widespread outages to ATMs and digital platforms due to technical problems.

As of Friday afternoon, BB&T’s online and mobile banking were unavailable to consumers, according to a spokesman for the Winston-Salem, N.C., company. BB&T’s ATMs and automated telephone services had also experienced outages, but both were restored on Friday, the $216 billion-asset company said in a message posted on its website.

BB&T cited “an equipment malfunction in one our data centers” as the cause of the outage. “At this time, we have no reason to believe this issue is related to cybersecurity,” said Brian Davis, a bank spokesman.

BB&T will keep most of its branches open two hours longer on Friday and Saturday to help consumers affected by the outage, Davis said.

BB&T first acknowledged the problem on Thursday, the Charlotte Observer reported.

BB&T told customers on Friday that they can still use their bank-issued debit, credit and prepaid cards. If customers incur fees due to the outage “we will waive or reimburse those fees,” Davis said.

Still, consumers have fired off angry tweets because of problems caused by the outage. “You claim to ‘hear’ our frustrations yet you don’t address that which we are frustrated about. Shame on you,” one customer wrote on BB&T’s Twitter page.

BB&T said some customers’ online information will not be immediately updated on Friday afternoon. “We expect those balances and transactions to become current later today,” Davis said.

Tags

Lenders have a role to play in the national reconciliation that must follow the recent racial unrest — providing greater access to capital for African Americans and other underserved groups so they can build wealth, activists said at a panel discussion hosted by Berkshire Bank in Boston.